As I’ve already mentioned recently, I was going to babble about a story told by Lars von Trier in two parts of his newest movie called “Nymphomaniac” but after giving it a second thought and a quick glance at a content of a treasury of the hard drive, I’ve decided to treat myself (and you) with a gem of the Polish cinematography, namely, the first full length feature by Roman Polanski, that is “Knife in the Water” from 1962. As it turned out, when I was watching the movie, de facto the first Polish picture to be nominated for an Oscar, I was involved in an intelligent but obvious game based on a senseless competition shown through a greatly told story made by, nowadays, just revealed talent of Polish cinema. And as if it wasn’t enough, despite having praised von Trier for at least well developed gift of observation, I faced a picture which not only proves greater skills on the same field but also speaks about definitely more universal, and maybe even more relevant, problem of a constant competition and full of mischief games between people, so called duplicity, pretence or hypocrisy. The movie tells a story of a married couple, the sailors on a way to the lake district to spend a day off there. Somewhere on a route they meet a hitchhiker and then he terrorises them, they push him off the car and he hunts them on a highway… Oh, wait… Wrong movie ;) In Polanski’s movie, the man lead by emotions invites the hitchhiker to the car and after a short journey all three of them go sailing on a little boat what, with a further development of the story, changes into an arena where two male specimens of mankind constantly challenge each other. Obviously this dramatic fight of two completely different and in the same time identical characters leads to the relatively dramatic consequences which make no one leave a boat as the winner. Right from the first scene, Polanski proves to the viewer that he not only can to tell a story with a picture but also aforementioned gift of observation when he characterises two of three, and the only, main characters just with use of a short sequence only and without even the vestigial dialogue and also properly emphasizes the general situation of their, how it turns out, marriage. Given that with a good reason I call myself a psychopathic sociopath with asocial attitude, I have an impression that I’m unable to understand Roman Polanski’s movie correctly (which actually makes me quite ashamed), so I’ll just attempt to briefly interpret the development of the conflict shown in the movie and make, more or less pathetic in relevance, conclusions of it. Due to this short scene no only a conflict, as the main theme of the movie, is being indicated to an audience but we also find out about the shortly tempered nature of Andrzej’s, as this is the name of the older man from the two who appear in the movie, and the director also suggests calm attitude of his wife together with some kind of tension between them, initially rather unexpressed though. As the story develops the impression made by the character when we saw them for a first time, seems to only prove itself when, throughout a whole movie, Andrzej seems to always control a situation. Well, he surely constantly endeavours to do so, probably due to some, only supposed, deeply hidden and ingrained complexes what together with clearly indicated need for even an illusory power causes him to constantly challenge a young man, what itself doesn’t do any good to anybody. Much poorer, young stranger who has come from supposedly lover class, believes in different values than the owner of the yacht who approaches him rather patronisingly and even with an overt hostility when it still seems to be secretly intrigued by the hitchhiker. From the very beginning, both of them play an illogical game, started with no reason, when they constantly compete with each other and try to pass some, quite important but gained from different experiences, information when doing so. Unfortunately, a conflict observed on a screen escalates with every moment of the spectacle because of various reasons, like for example, mentioned already, rather authoritative attitude of Andrzej’s, or in times when the young man not only denies but actually rejects, after all, good intentions of the couple. Of course in this challenge neither the prejudice, present on both sides of a conflict, nor a fact that the characters despite their belief in own code (like for example the discipline) indicate quite a dose of hypocrisy deep in themselves, doesn’t help to solve a problem. As the time passes the class background differences and unfortunately real, concerning both sides, restrictions in point of view of the world arisen from those differences, become more visible between senselessly competing men. It also doesn’t help that none of them wants to even symbolically ease off or just even consider well camouflaged clues given by an opponent, none of them even allows himself a moment of reflection in a real storm of happenings caused by constantly intensified conflict. That actually is why the most interesting character seems to be Krystyna, who for the most of the movie makes an impression of being supressed by a husband but at the same time she, subtly but undeniably, completes her partner when she skilfully reduces tension in the most appropriate moment, or due to very concise and pointed comments (which influence Andrzej rather hugely) when she expresses not only way better control of herself in face of crisis situation but also a wide knowledge of life and a nature of man. Krystyna has also a great impact on the stranger, when sometimes she unconsciously causes his actions or when she leads him on a particular path completely wilfully. When I was watching “Knife in the Water” sometimes I had an impression that I was watching in some measure a study of a human as a gregarious creature, what as I hope sounds at least just a little valid after getting familiar with a whole load of preceding babble about the development of the inter- generation and worldview conflict. I think that Polanski has criticised not only the society but also the humanity itself by pointing the whole palette of its worst flaws, flaws like conscious drive to the conflict for gratification of own impulses or the lack of will to learn an experience presented by a reflection upon the point of view of the other man, what in a movie could have been emphasized by a fact that as the complete stranger, hitchhiker and Andrzej didn’t want to learn from each other but only to prove their point no matter how big the cost was, especially given that both of them, in one way or another wanted to show themselves off for the appreciation of woman who made an impression on both of them, as Krystyna herself obviously realised. A woman, despite being criticised to a certain extent, seems to be affirmed to the point where her quite serious guilt not only doesn’t stand out but she also gets away with everything which in turn feels completely understandable given a fact that it is her who turned out to be a natural catalyst for an already dramatic enough competition and the smartest from all participants of the conflict. Unfortunately, when I watched the whole movie I had an impression that none of three characters didn’t made any conclusions from just experienced happenings and I just read their attitude as the manifest of the will of life in illusion and lie if it’s impossible to subordinate people around. And that seems to be the saddest and the ultimate comment on as society as to humanity that the director made what I believe to be true due to my own experience. Despite an extremely interesting , quite difficult to describe though, way of looking at the world, “Knife in the Water” offers more than quasi philosophical analysis of human behaviour as the actual action develops in an unexpected way what due to greatly written script doesn’t allow the audience to lose a track of continuity. That let a viewer to get nearly personally involved and feel like one of competing sides. The dialogs are definitely the most important and are written with unique subtlety and I don’t even want to guess what personal experience (although I hope it’s just a congenital knowledge of life let my fellow-countryman make such an intriguing movie) and what is an essence which pushes the action further with the unique dynamics. From a distance a movie makes an impression that every scene was repeatedly acted out in the director’s imagination over and over again before he decided to start filming and every element of the story seems to mean something to the extent that even an outwardly meaningless radio transmission I my opinion sounds like a comment on the situation currently being seen on a screen. If that is true it may only prove at least rare skills in storytelling. Given that Roman Polanski is one of only the few Polish directors know worldwide I suppose that the movie is way deeper than my limited mind can understand and a quality of picture exceeds a level of excitation of somebody who discovered it much later than should have. That’s why I’m stopping embarrassing myself by making an attempts to argue with the topic. If I were to encourage you to watch or praise it a little more then the only thing I could write about “Knife in the Water” would be a little comment on the acting performed by a fantastic, unfortunately already dead, Leon Niemczyk or Jolanta Umecka and Zygmunt Malanowicz, both completely unknown to me until now. Actors don’t act like this anymore – with grace, paying a lot of attention to diction, in the matter of principals of the old masters which makes the movie even better and in a way impossible to describe, bringing its magic into a new dimension.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 16:57:55 +0000
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